Let Me See Your Hand
by Mystic25
Summary: What's real and what's not real is a thin line. Tag to: "Hello, Cruel World"; in the warehouse with Sam and Dean.


"Let Me See Your Hand."

Mystic25

Summary: What's real and what's not real is a thin line. Tag to: "Hello, Cruel World"; in the warehouse with Sam and Dean.

RATING: T for language and violent imagery.

A/N: OMFG, that episode, was AMAZING! There was soo much to play in, _sooo_ much. I had to pick just _one_, cause my brain would've exploded otherwise. This dialogue is accurate from the show (or at least "Wikepedia accurate) But, I did weave some things in-between it, which makes it _kinda_ AU ish. I wanted to explore more into the scene, and unfold it more. But I kept it at the real awesomness that made me love it in the first place, because it would dishonor it to do a complete revamp. This is just me digging.

A/N #2: This will alternate from Dean and Sam's prospective, not first person, just what's going on inside their heads. It will start with Dean, and each line break will alternate.

DISCLAIMER: Kripke, and Gamble….I tip my all imaginary and fake hats to you, Jensen and Jared….no words….you are _amazing_ actors…..

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><p><strong>xxxxxXxxxx<strong>

"_When brothers agree, no fortress is as strong as their common life."_

~Phillip K. Dick

"_Reality bites…and doesn't let go."_

~Author Unkown

**xxxxxxXxxxxx**

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><p>"Whoa, <em>whoa –!"<em>

The gun is on Dean in nothing but terror. Pupils blown wide in fear, almost pulsating in this terror from the trappings of the torment that wanted to escape from where they couldn't be released – Sam's nightmares. Hand built by Lucifer to torture him with eyes wide open.

"I thought I was with you Dean!" The gun stopped being just _on_ Dean, it was now aimed out _at_ him, shaking, accurate.

"Okay, well I'm here now." Dean's voice is low, but not placating, because this was _not_ a placating place. He wasn't trying to soothe Sam, he was trying to _save_ him.

"No, no I don't I-" Sam's eyes tore to the side of the warehouse, watching something invisible. "-I can't know that for sure-" the gun clicked a cock, a heavy one. "-you understand me!"

"Okay," Dean was proud of his ability to command with his voice. But, not now, because he didn't want to command anything, because it was _different_ with Sam. "Okay, we're going to have to start small-"

"I don't remember driving here!" There was no panic in Sam's voice; Sam's voice _was_ panic.

Dean had seen Sam in a myriad of facets – had seen his brother, angry, happy, scared, drunk, confused, even soulless. But, never had Dean seen _this_ – terror, abject and absolute – on his brother's face. As if hope were a being Sam was watching being flayed alive in front of him.

Dean watched Sam's head turn again, to the same spot of emptiness in the warehouse, watched his brother's eyes have an entire conversation with _nothing. _But Dean knew, to Sam it _wasn't_ nothing, it was, literal and complete _HELL._

And, the worse thing, the _worse thing, _about this whole shitload of worse things, was not being able to _see_ what was doing this to his little brother. To kick it's nuts back up its body, hallucination, Lucifer, or not.

The gun was still aimed in an accurate, but still shaking, hand. It was swept through the air and shot at at the nothing that only _Sam_ couldn't see.

"Whoa, whoa, _Sam!_ This conversation does not require a weapon's discharge!" Dean's hands were raised like a ward. Not to protect himself, but to protect _Sam. _To throw himself in front of his brother and this maddening torture, the one he couldn't see. But he would do it anyway, before even a heartbeat.

Sam heaved a look at him. He wasn't a _deer caught in the headlights,_ or even his trademark: _scared beaten puppy._ What Sam wore on his face, it had no name because, no other being had worn such a look before. Angry, haunted, afraid, scared, aching, all rolled into one singular expression. One look fired with the same velocity as the bullet hurling into the empty air.

"_Listen to me!"_

The gun cocked again in Dean's directions. Dean's hands went up again, but so did his voice, because Sam _wasn't _insane.

Another shot that Dean ducked from, even though Sam's aim was off, high, whether purposely or not. Nothing touched Dean from that bullet, except the fear that had compelled it to be fired in the first place.

"Sam. _Listen. to. me!"_

_This_ was insane; this whole fucked up mess that wanted to tear his brother apart like paper, like he was _nothing. _

Sam lowered his weapon, his head a mess of bobbing and choking breaths. His eyes still wearing something so torn, it was more shreds than expression.

"Look at me!" Dean never blinked, never removed eyes from Sam, who kept shifting terrified eyes into the dark corners towards what taunted him. "Come on. You know what's real? Look man, I've been to Hell, Okay? and I know a thing or two about torture. I've _seen _torture before, Sammy; enough to know that it feels _different_ than the pain of _this_ _-"_ Dean gestured with his fingers around an empty warehouse that echoed a silence that he knew screamed like a devil to Sam's ears. "this regular, stupid, crappy _this-_" Dean's voice was still low, but shattered the air like thunder.

"No, no," Sam's head shaking was frantic, like he wanted to rip it from his own neck. "How can you know that for sure?"

Dean watched his brother, watched him crumblling at the mention of Hell. Because of what it signified. _His_ torture, and Dean's own too.

When _nothing_ else was real to Sam, Dean could see that _this_ was. Because Lucifer had never seen torture through the eyes of the victims, so he could never recreate even a flimsy version of the_ pain_ that came from living through it. This was a bond that Dean had never wanted to share with Sam, but he _did. _And that he found, staring across the room at his brother, frazzled and dying inside. The wounded half of a soul finding it's other.

Sam looked like he wanted to cry. And not the kind of cry that Dean liked to joke made his brother emo – the torn, brutal crying of someone who didn't know what the hell else he was supposed to do.

It tore Dean's insides out and laid them on the floor – the gleaming soul inside gutted, because his brother was.

"Let me see your hand." It was a chick flick line; but spoken from Dean Winchester it wasn't – because it was powerful.

Sam hesitated, raising his right hand, like a lab animal afraid of electric shock at an act of kindness.

"No, no; the gimp hand! Let me see it!" Dean didn't request.

Sam didn't offer - he hesitated again. He was scared shitless.

Dean saw it – He grabbed his hand anyway.

Sam flinched, jerked his hand away from Dean's at the contact.

Dean snatched Sam's left hand high in mid air. "Hey!" His lips were a growl, angry, seeking, _trying. _He shakes the injured flesh underneath a makeshift bandage.

Sam stopped flinching. He looked like he wanted to scream and throw up.

Dean didn't let him do either. "Does this feel _different_ Sam?" Sam hissed a whimper as Dean pressed a thumb so hard into his palm that blood began to seep through the bandage. "This is real, not in Hell. Not a year ago, _now! _I was with you when you cut it, I sewed it up!"

Sam stared wide eyed, in total fear again at something behind Dean, trying to pull his hand away, to fire his gun again. Trying to _escape_, rather than listen to what Dean knew was whispering in his ears.

Dean yanked Sam's entire arm down, the one which still grasped the gun, locking it with his own. Sam had no voice at that pain, only a silent gasping scream that tore up his face, and sent the pieces into the air.

Dean knew what he was doing hurt like a bitch. The older brother inside of him screamed at him to stop; but the part that connected him to Sam, the part that bled with Sam bled, overrode it. Because to cleanse a wound, you had to remove all the poison.

"Real is _different! This_ is different, _right? _Then all that crap tearing at your walnut," I'm _different, _right!"

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><p><strong>xxxxxXxxxx<strong>

There was a '_Sammy I'm here_' behind that, that Sam heard. Even beyond the taunting of the Devil-he-never-wanted-to-know.

_Nothing_ was _really real_ any more to Sam. Not the air, not the warehouse. Not even his horror filled belief in that Lucifer was standing _right there-_lounging about like his torture was merely a distracting amusement.

None of it made sense…

Except for Dean's hand, and the heavy clarity of his voice.

The pain in his hand _hurt;_ like stabbing knives. But, it was a _real_ pain. Not agonizing, and torturously slow like Lucifer choking him, or touching him with a hand that burned like fire every time he felt it. It was a sharp, piercing clarity to ground him, to let him know that he was _here_.

And so was Dean.

Dean was squeezing his wound so hard it pulsated. And the throbbing traveled like a conduit from Sam's hand to Dean's face; to the look in his older brother's eyes.

"_Not so fast there bunk buddy." _Nick's long since deceased meat suit spoke in Lucifer's voice, mocking him, mocking _everything. _

Sam shook his head, losing everything about that moment in that shake, except for one thing-

Dean was holding his hand– they were holding hands. Dean, _squeezing the shit out of it _in an abandoned warehouse, with the Devil smiling at him with a terrifying simpleness from the corner of his eye.

But they were _holding hands._

They hadn't held hands since Dean was 7, since he was a child too young to care about how it looked to the outside world. Back when all Sam could see was that Dean loved him.

It felt uneven at first, but it started to seep into Sam, it started to feel like home.

Sam finally pulled his hand away, trying to shake lose the pain that pulsated like its own heartbeat from the wounded palm, finally answering Dean's question. "Yeah, I think so." He stared at the bloodstain, he could smell the coopery scent of his own blood, his own breathing- _real_

"You can't _imagine_ a year and a half worth of life – you're _out_ Sam!" Dean's voice shook. Sam heard it, and he shook with it, because he_ felt_ it too_._

"_How sweet and Florence Nightingale Sammy,"_ Lucifer smiled a sickening smile when he taunted. He vanished like a mirage. _"Does Big Brother do this every time you have a psychotic episode?" _Lucifer emerged again on Sam's right, chin resting on a peeling hand, head half cocked, watching with sickening curiousity. His smile nothing happy, and everything sadistic. _"Or do you also have special nights reserved when Dean get's to spoon a brother who's really nothing but a ghost burning in hellfire?"_

"Shut up!" Sam had a thunderous bark, and even scared, even shaking, trembling and terrified, it echoed in the warehouse. It wasn't real, it _wasn't_ real, god this _couldn't_ be real-

"_Oh but it is real Sammy, what's NOT, is what you want so badly to be,"_ Lucifer tsked, a long hand reaching out to caress the side of Dean's face, making a face at Sam like he was pitying a mangy stray dog wanting to crawl under his porch from the rain. _"You poor stupid, bitch crapped out abortion."_

"_Sam!"_

Sam's eyes moved, from Lucifer, _right there,_ mere _centimeters_ from Dean, to _Dean_, who had taken his hand again, harder, four fingers digging into the flesh– and with each painful press, Lucifer distorted, into snow- into something fake.

Lucifer flickered like a power outage; but Sam still saw his living nightmare raise a rusted Bowie knife and gut it through Dean's back, and out through his chest, raining blood all down the front of his brother's shirt.

It was fake, it was fake, but _seeing_ blood _dripping_ from Dean's chest, pooling from a gaping wound, it was _anything_ but fake. Sam flinched like something had slapped him with a bagful of rusty nails.

"_Aww, does 'ittle Sammy not want me to hwurt his big brother? "_ Lucifer's voice was baby sounding, mocking, and it was a terrifying thing. He torqued the blade and it made a sickening, squelching sound. _"Does hims love Dean too much?"_

"Look at me Sam!" Dean grappled deeper into Sam's hand.

Sam's eyes had been gone a long time, lost to an overabundance of light and manic stimulation, of all his he couldn't see, but _could_ see, all he was hearing, his city dying before him. But seeing Lucifer flickered, wavering in and out, like something trying to broadcast itself on bad reception, because of what _Dean_ was _doing_-

Sam was 5 when he had watched his brother bandage a nasty jagged scrape on his knee he got taking a header off his bike. It had hurt, and he squirmed when Dean was cleaning it. But, after a while he was watching his big brother clean out the wound, hearing him talk about how it would help even with the kick of peroxide, and told him to stop squirming, because he was trying to _help. _Sam had listened, had pushed a tiny hand to Dean's to take the paper towel from his brother, to clean out his wound himself. Because, Dean had done it, and he said it would _help._ And Sam needed no other explanation.

Growing into an adult, a _hunter_ had taken that away from him. That basic trust, doing things because Dean was his big brother. But it was taken away, to be reopened in such a cold run down place, where Lucifer wore his memories as his own, and Sam wore that fear like clothes.

It reopened, and was blown wide, because _Dean was his big brother,_ and 24 years of separation from that long ago child hadn't changed that. It had aged it, to bring them _here, _in _this _moment.

**xxxxxxXxxxx**

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><p>Dean was talking fast to Sam. "It's not real unless you <em>believe it<em> Sam! " Dean's fingers felt like they were _digging_ into Sam's hand, like his digits would punch through to the other side. "I am your flesh-and-blood brother, I am the only one who can legitimately kick your ass in real time."

It would have been funny, if laughter wasn't so far removed from them. Instead, it was grounding. It was Dean reaching out to the part of Sam that had belonged to him since Day One. The part that he wasn't giving up to a The Ultimate Underground Bitch, because it was _his,_ because it was _THEIRS. _

"You got away. We got you out Sammy."

Sam pulled his hand away, and Dean reached for it like an instinct, but his hand stilled when he saw Sam picking up where he left off.

Sam was digging his thumb into his _own_ hand, drawing out his own blood. His face set in agony, but also in determination.

Dean never thought he would cheer his brother to _injure_ himself, but he was now. His mind was screaming at Sam to keep going, to end this, to come back to what was real.

Because what was real was _him. _

And Dean needed Sam as much as Sam needed him.

And they didn't go through seven years of shit to finally realize what their definition of _need_ was, just to watch it fall away.

"You hafta believe it Sam! I can't crawl into your mind; it's gotta be you to crawl _out!"_ Dean was panting as much as Sam was.

He watched Sam press into his hand so damn hard; the agony of it sending sweat pouring down his brother's face, his neck. But, he didn't let up. Something hurting tore from his little brother's throat, but he still kept at it.

There were moments that made Dean proud of Sam. This made him _alive._ Because he was watching what was so vital to him, watching Sam, take what was _his_ back from the Devil.

"You've already _been _to hell, you've done your tour, and every one else's! You hafta weed through the shit, and find what's real!"

Sam whispered a scream, it shock waved through Dean, but Sam kept going.

"Believe in that! Believe in _me, _okay? You gotta believe me; you gotta make it Stone Number One and _build_ on it. You understand?"

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><p><strong>xxxxxXxxxx<strong>

Sticks and stones broke bones. Lucifer liked to break something more vital, your _soul._

Sam screamed so much louder in his head than he did out loud. The wound was burning. Lucifer danced around him, in and out, in and out, flickering like hellish candlelight- always with a smile. But finally, he dissolved, like a raging fire finally meeting the cooling hit of water.

Sam was panting, like a fish that had long ago forgotten that it had to breathe in water to live.

"Yeah," Sam is surprised to hear his own voice, surprised that he even _has _it, that it hasn't been lost along with everything else. "Yeah Okay." Something so simple sounding in a world never so simple sounding.

He was still panting, gasping, watching Dean repeat his actions, echoing his ragged breaths one painful lungful at a time.

There was no Lucifer, there was only _real_, broken, terrified, strong, whiskey smelling _REAL,_ that stood staring at him like he wanted to punch him, commit him, or hug him.

His phone rang, the sound was so _normal_ that it seemed _abnormal_. He stared at his brother, just stared at him, and answered the phone.

"Bobby hey-" Sam had yet to control his breathing, he could feel it, slamming into him like it was something wanting to escape.

His eyes met his brother's over the sudden dead stillness of the air.

Seeing what was there made Sam's breathing slow…

There was something on Dean's face. The looks to commit him and punch him fell away. Sam _knew_ that look, he was born knowing that look.

Dean wanted to hug him.

And Sam wanted to let him, because there were the needs that kept you _alive_, and the needs that kept you _whole_. And Sam _needed_ Dean to _be_ whole.

But Sam continued to listen to Bobby instead. "Leviathans, _here_?" They were all still in danger, the kind that would kill you tomorrow, before tomorrow even had a chance to fully wake up. Cas had been taken over by these things, it had _killed_ the angel, and it wasn't against going down the food chain.

It would have to wait.

Sam didn't _want_ to crack up, he preferred his mind intact, to think without fear of what he was thinking _about_. But he could no longer lie to himself. He wasn't fine, or okay. And it was in this instant, where his darkest hours weren't just confined to nightmares in darkness where no one could see – that Sam didn't _want_ to wait for that kind of contact with his brother.

Sam didn't _want_ to wait, It wasn't something simple, he had waited for it for 180 years. This was the _only_ thing that kept him from pulling downwards on his own gun to decorate the ceiling with his face.

He _wanted. _Not a manly, bear back slapping hug, or a shoulder pat. The kind of contact that had just chased Satan away, had given him something _back_, the kind that left him winded, terrified to lose it, the _real._

But he _had_ to wait. If he curled into where he wanted to go, into _Dean._ To hide away into his big brother, because he was scared shitless, because he was the _only_ one who would _ever_ understand - then they would be screwed, then there would _be_ no reality to fight for.

"Bobby's got a live one."

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><p><strong>xxxxxXxxxx<strong>

Sam had always worn a wounded man's face when he was scared. Even as young as two. He would come to Dean with pleading, dripping eyes full of such pain that even the smallest of paper cut would seem like something huge.

It wasn't that he was weak. Sam was _never_ weak. He would come, only in this way, when he was at his end, when _nothing_ he tried was working, when he was _done._

Dean was 7 the last time he had held Sam's hand, at a street fair in Idaho, crossing the road of busy traffic, to get to the nearest food stall, because Sam was hungry, and was staring to complain. His little brother's hand fit so small into his, swallowed up by even his 7-year-old grip.

The hand tonight was huge, but; Sam was still his little brother, no matter how big his hand got, it still _fit_ into his. It was _real_. And so was the fierce determination to bring him back, to save him. Not because it was his duty, but because it was _Sam._

_**Caped crusader, she's a new born leader  
>But you should see her when her daughter's on the phone<br>And she wipes the tears away and she laces up because  
>there's still Hell to pay<br>And it sure feels feels like Hell today**__**  
><strong>_

He couldn't watch his brother being tortured, and flayed apart. Because they were the same thing, they echoed each other. If one fell, there _was_ no real, there was only the end. Because you cannot survive with only half your life still standing.

Dean wanted to hug the kid, because Sam looked like he wouldn't protest, he would flow into it like water, like an intrinsic need. His brother was hovering on the edge, not knowing which way was up, or if he even wanted to _go_ up– Dean wanted nothing _but_ to hug him, to bury him somewhere safe, into the part that he had always set aside for him.

But, he had to stop, because Sam had pulled back, was trying so damn hard to stand up and walk again after being kicked in the head.

Dean knew as well as Sam, that he hadn't brought his little brother back to make him lie down and watch a fight. To watch everyone he cared about fall in front of him and do _nothing._ He had to trust Sam would keep it together, he owed it to him. He had to remember what it looked like when his brother chased away the devil _literally_ with his own hand.

What it looked like when he saved him. Because Sam had chosen to save himself, killing his own hand because of _trust,_ because they were back to basics, because _Dean had said so._

God, this wasn't fucking _fair…_how could much more did they want Sam to _do?_

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><p><strong>xxxxxXxxxx<strong>

_**Innocence behind his broken expression  
>He's a child of mercy<br>He's our unlearned lesson  
>And he's trying to wake up from this wilderness his world has<br>now become  
>He's reaching out to those he's running from<strong>_

Sam had never taken a bath in jagged glass pieces, but standing here; he felt like he had. He was half gone, shredded in some places, completely black in others.

But falling was never a _luxury_ he didn't have time for. He didn't _want_ to fall. Painting the wall with his brains was a weakness, but it was never an _option. _Not when he wanted to remember what _is._

What's real and what's not real was a thin line, what's real is what he could _touch_ in his hands, and even when he stopped thinking it was real, it was still there…

_**You see these hands?  
>They're bruised and brown<br>They're yours alone**_

Dean, it was _always _Dean. Dean _was_ Stone Number One. He was what Sam could _touch_ _in his hands_ and know, feel the rough, calluses, the scars, the still bleeding wounds, the regular _this. _Know that _that's_ what made it real. That it was still there because it had never _left._

"We gotta go Dean," Sam didn't have the voice for such a phrase, it hurt so much to even talk.

But it also hurt to stand, and he _had to_ stand up, to keep walking.

**xxxxxXxxxx**

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><p>When Sam became more important that breath, Dean had no idea. But, it happened a long time ago.<p>

Breathing was overrated to Dean.

But, not that Important Thing. That, which was now a rickety house, ready to topple, but instead rutteted itself deeper into the ground, to keep standing, _refusing_ to die.

There was nothing.

There was him and there was Sam.

Nothing else existed anymore.

_**Hold on love  
>We're still going down<br>Hold on love  
>We're still fighting…<strong>_

"Okay, well let's go."

_**The War at Home.**_

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><p><strong>xxxxXxxx<strong>

End.

This took a while to end. I had an ending that I didn't like, it didn't _flow_,It wasn't _Sam and Dean._ It look a while to find _THAT._ I loved this episode so much, all that comfort, pain, all that _Sam and Dean_, gahh…

I couldn't even _touch_ the ending ambulance scene, nothing I had swirling around in my brain would've worked….

So I went with this, which was my absolute _favorite_ scene anyway.

These lyrics at the end are from "The War at Home" by Josh Groban. It is not a classic rock, or even a _rock_ song. But in all my searches for lyrics to place in here at the moments I needed, nothing spoke to me more than this one.

R/R please.

Mystic.


End file.
